NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9494, 25 April 1894, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The Government has abandoned the boycott that it endeavoured to set up against the representatives of the Wellington Evening Post obtaining admission to the Government Buildings. Its action was clearly illegal, as Sir Robert Stout has shown, and no doubt the opinion which he gave on the subject influenced the Government in abandoning a position which bo high a legal authority had declared to be untenable. Ab the same time the Government has displayed a contemptible and dangerous spirit, which we doubt not the people of New Zealand have duly rioted. A free and independent press is the only safeguard that exists between a people and its rulers; and when a Government is found afraid of the press, when ib is found attempting to punish it, so to speak, for its fearless criticisms of its policy, for giving publicity to information which the public havearighb to know, as sure as night follows day that Government is not to be trusted. We congratulate our Wellington contemporary on its victory over the Government, which it, in reality, a victory for the People.

The function of the press now-a-daysia to supply the public with the earliest and fullest news. In discharging this duty it may, as it sometimes does, commit mistakes. To err is human. But its only object is to serve the public. The fuss which the Government; is

creating, over the publican, of the Fox :« correspondence is ludicrous J&en one re- i members whab • the Press '1L ; done -- m matters of international imporWe. The i moment the signatures to reaty of Berlin had been attached to thatlpaument the correspondent of the London -itaes was in possession of a copy of it. Ho% e obtained it we do nob know. ij> was jealously guarded. But the the Times'had the text of the Treaty Wore even some of the Sovereigns of EurojSlhad read it. Then within the last month wo we have seen a remarkable instancf, of what the Press is sometimes able do in anticipating official information tin the announcement made by the Pall H»\\\ Gazette, of the impending resignation M Mr. Gladstone, a piece of news whioi, though received with a chorus of in* credulity at the time, was completely confirmed within a few weeks. Yet no Government proposed to boycott the representatives of the Times or the Gazette. Even when the London Globe published the Schouvaloff agreement, which it obtained from a clerk in the English Foreign Office, there was no talk of punishing the Globe. The notion would have been laughed at. It has been reserved for a New Zoaland Government to essay the task—in which ib has hopelessly failed— chastising the press for its enterprise and foreknowledge. - St. Mark's Day ! As with so many other ecclesiastical festivals which date back to the earlier and ruder Christian centuries numerous customs and superstitions have grown up around the observance of the feast of St. Mark, only to die away again under the clear, cold, and unsentimental scientific spirit of the latter : half of the nineteenth century. Until comparatively recent times it was believed in the .North of England that if on the eve of St. Mark a person watched in the church porch from eleven till one o'clock he would see the apparitions of those who were to be buried in the churchyard during the year—

How, when the midnight signal tolls Along the churchyard green, A mournful train of sentenced souls In winding sheets are seen. The ghosts of all whom death shall doom Within the coming year 111 pule procession walk the gloom Amid the silence drear. Numerous stories to prove the truth of this have been placed on record, and one old writer in recording one of these narratives states that it was guaranteed by the authority of " the minister of God's word at Great Grimsby."

It has been said that at no time is a man so strongly impressed with his own impotence as during an earthquake. He is so utterly powerless to avert the catastrophe, and the effect is so stupefying and bewildering that in many cases people make no effort to escape. The earthquakes in Greece, of which we have just received intelligence, will leave that unfortunate country in a most deplorable condition, coming as they do upon the top of financial disasters almost amounting to national bankruptcy. Many a one inside and outside Greece will mourn the destruction of Thebes of immortal memory, more than once destroyed and rebuilt, and connected with the golden age of Greece, with the Persian invasions, and with the wars of Alexander. Bub the forces of nature care nothing for the sentiments of mankind. The question of the cause and history of earthquakes has been receiving considerable attention of recent years. A European scientist lately examined the scene of the terrible earthquake in Japan on October 23, 1891, and found that along the banks of the river mud volcanoes, similar to the sand craters »b Achttfa in Greoeo, had boon formed, | In the Japanese . catastrophe, 7279 persons j were killed, 17,393 wounded, 197,975 I buildings reduced to ruins or burnt, and 78,296 buildings partially destroyed. The region subjected to the shocks embraced an area of 243,000 square miles, or one-sixth of the whole area of Japan. Throughout the whole month of October the tremors were numerous, but the great shock of October 28 found the people wholly unprepared.

The unexpected always seems to happen in these appalling earth movements. Nearly all the great earthquakes have come like a thunderclap. No one is prepared for these occurrences. The volcano generally announces an imminent outburst by warning signs, but the earthquake, in the twinkling of an eye, entirely demolishes a large town and wrecks a district. Nothing had occurred to make men suspect the terrible earthquake of Lisbon in 1775, when at twenty-five minutes to ten in the morning, as the people were preparing for business, a frightful subterranean noise struck the inhabitants with stupefaction, and six minutes afterwards the great city was a heap of ruins, covering an immense number of victims. In the catastrophe of Messina, in 1783, the movement was still more precipitate. In two minutes the town was utterly overturned, and the heaped-up ruins were blazing like a huge bonfire. The Lisbon earthquake shook all Europe, and part of Africa. The Alps and the Pyrenees trembled, the seas rose and fell on the coast of Norway, Sweden, the* British Isles, and even America. As Lisbon collapsed many of the richest cities of Morocco were almost totally destroyed, and an oasis with some 10,000 inhabitants disappeared.

The cholera has once moras made its appearance in Europe, and it remains to be seen whether the authorities will be able to cope with it. These periodical visitations are not creditable bo these days of scientific discovery; for, according to Dr. Klein, lecturer on general anatomy and physiology ab St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, cholera has been demonstrated to be a preventive disease. In 1892 the cholera broke oub in Hamburg, when the insanitary condition of its dock and port population, and the polluted supply of drinking water, brought for Hamburg the long-predicted day of reckoning. In former years the establishment of such a focus of disease as Hamburg, which had vast communications and intercourse with the whole of Germany, which have been followed by innumerable foci of cholera all over Germany; bub on this occasion the excellent sanitary precautions of the Germans confined the infection to a few oases in a limited number of towns. The English authorities were even more successful in coping with the epidemic in the same year.

la a recent lecture Dr. Klein contended that the prevention of cholera was beset with less difficulty than that of some of the communicable diseases which in towns we had almost constantly among us. He quoted an account by Mr. Ernest Hart of the great religious festival or Kumbh Pair, of Hard war, a town on the Ganges, at which, in 1891, 800,000 to 1,000,000 pilgrims assembled. In the opinion of many experienced officials the most complete sanitary arrangements would be powerless to. prevent the spread of cholera, if the fair was allowed to take place. The pilgrims coming from cholerainfected districts brought the infection with them, and two people died of undoubted cholera at Hard war during the most crowded period. Owing, however, to the excellent and stringent sanitary precautions the infection did not spread. ■ ' No more

oases arose in the town or camp, no did 7? ' disease, develop on .the track of abedparsing, pilgrims. That was UDquosfeS* ably one of the most remarluble T!i brilliant achievements of Banitati Qa iwJJJ whole history of cholera. . A recent traveller in Palestine £,-. . graphic account of the manner in which th Passover is observed at the present day b the Samaritans on Mount Gerizlm to found the men, some sixty in „ mber 8 gathered arouni the Tabernacle. Th' High Priest, a grand-looking man , stood al the door readirg aloud the passages from Exodus and lumbers with regard to th Passover. Some eight or ten of the olde! men stood beide him, listening, and giving a response ot and then. Huddled towther at their feet were seven fab lambs && a plentiful supply of hyssop was heaped vbesid? then'. Meantime, the hour of sunset iapprj»achei, and all seemed to be ready When the Bun came quite near the horizon the/ formed a close circle in the space jbe;weeuthe Tabernacle and the pit; the feefren liimbs were passed along from hand M hand and held firmly, each by two op wree men, at equal distances from one toother within the circle. One of the fcrbaned men ran to the top of a neigh, during knoll, from which the M editor'. mnean could be seen, and watched the inking sun. He suddenly raised his arm fa signify that the sun had touched the sea, Jnd in a moment seven knives flashed into the air the seven lambs eank with a lurglelurgle on the grass; a great sigh or shout If thankfulness rose.into the air. A man |an swiftly out of the Tabernacle with a |owl of the blood and a handful of hyssop ind passed from tent to tent, scoring the' ;pp of each tent door with a deep blood itain. The congregation fell upon one mother's necks, and kissed each other with |eep emotion, many with tears in their res, and a look of intense relief as of •Aiobq who have passed through a crisis puch to be remembered. Then followed )ho cooking and the paschal meal. - I The banquet given by the Lord Mayor of iondon, on St. George's Day, was a bril|mb affair. It was attended by a largo nd distinguished company. Sir George Irey, who had been invited to be present, fas, unfortunately, unable to attend. The lea of the Lord Mayor is to make the day jday of celebration throughout the British Jmpire, so as to foster and strengthen he ties between the old country ,nd its oversea possessions. Ideas, as ?lato long ago declared, rule the world, aid this idea is, we are inclined to relieve, destined to be taken np and to have a potent influence in the direction intended by its originator. The abour rising in America is assuming a serious phase. The march of an army of unemployed upon the capital— army jhab is certain to attract to its ranks the icum of the countryis likely to lead to serious disturbance. The national guard in Washington is being mobilised in view of Contingencies, and there is every likelihood >f a conflict between them and the lawless rabble that is endeavouring to intimidate Parliament. The earthquakes in Greece have, so far as is at present knowh, resulted in the death of . nearly four hundred persons. The anarchist, Farandi, arrested in London, has confessed to having intended to commit a series of dynamite outrages, which would have caused a panic-da tie English metropolis.